A commenter on Rapture Ready talking about Islam:

"Its emotion based (not intelectual), homicidal, and willing to make war on a moments notice."  

Pot meets kettle.

Stumbled across a very good article on Greta Christina's Blog.

Excerpt:

"I want to talk about atheists and anger. This has been a hard piece to write, and it may be a hard one to read. I'm not going to be as polite and good-tempered as I usually am in this blog; this piece is about anger, and for once I'm going to fucking well let myself be angry.  But I think it's important. One of the most common criticisms lobbed at the newly-vocal atheist community is, "Why do you have to be so angry?" So I want to talk about:

1. Why atheists are angry;

2. Why our anger is valid, valuable, and necessary;

And 3. Why it's completely fucked-up to try to take our anger away from us."

....

"I'm angry that atheist soldiers -- in the U.S. armed forces -- have had prayer ceremonies pressured on them and atheist meetings broken up by Christian superior officers, in direct violation of the First Amendment."

....

"I'm angry that women are dying of AIDS in Africa and South America because the Catholic Church has convinced them that using condoms makes baby Jesus cry."

....

"I'm angry about what happened to Galileo. Still. And I'm angry that it took the Catholic Church until 1992 to apologize for it."

....

"I'm angry -- enraged -- at the priests who molest children and tell them it's God's will. I'm enraged at the Catholic Church that consciously, deliberately, repeatedly, for years, acted to protect priests who molested children, and consciously and deliberately acted to keep it a secret, placing the Church's reputation as a higher priority than, for fuck's sake, children not being molested. And I'm enraged that the Church is now trying to argue, in court, that protecting child-molesting priests from prosecution, and shuffling those priests from diocese to diocese so they can molest kids in a whole new community that doesn't yet suspect them, is a Constitutionally protected form of free religious expression."

Rad the full article here.  

Source: http://gretachristina.typepad.com

EGYPT: VILLAGE CHRISTIANS IN HIDING AFTER CLASH

Violence erupts on mere suspicion of a prayer meeting.

ISTANBUL, June 25 (Compass Direct News) – "Nearly 1,000 Coptic Christians in Egypt are hiding in their homes after clashes erupted Sunday (June 21) between them and their village’s majority-Muslim population over the use of a three-story building belonging to the Coptic Church. When on Sunday at 11 a.m. a group of 25 Christians from Cairo stopped in Ezbet Boshra-East, a village of about 3,000 people three hours south of Cairo by car, few villagers failed to take notice. Planning to visit local Christians and the Rev. Isaac Castor, the group had gathered outside the building owned by the Coptic Church, where the priest lives with his family. Castor said only six of them had entered the building when Muslim neighbors approached the rest of the group waiting outside and began taunting them. A Muslim woman walked up to one of the visiting women, he said, and slapped her. Soon village youths gathered and started throwing stones at the visitors and the building, and according to Castor within minutes hundreds of villagers, Muslims against Christians, were fighting each other in the streets of Ezbet Boshra-East. 'They were all over the streets hitting each other with sticks and their fists,” Castor told Compass from his home by phone. “Some people were on top of buildings throwing stones; it was like a civil war.'"

Source: http://compassdirect.org

Check it out here.

Source: http://awesomepedia.org/

I am way too distracted by her facial expressions to be bothered by her comments...

I know it looks long, but it is a good read.  Especially if you like The Onion's humor..

Brings Us Back to Reality

This speech was presented at the 2008 National FFRF Convention in Chicago on Oct. 12, 2008. This is the script–minus a PowerPoint presentation of Scott’s favorite irreverent Onion headlines and stories.

By Scott Dikkers

"I’d like to start out, if I may, with a few insults. I’d also like to show you some articles from The Onion, the newspaper that I founded and then edited for 15 of the past 20 years. Then, I’ll tie it all together with a heartwarming defense of rational thinking.

So, I saw this U. of Minn. survey that came out a while back. Perhaps you saw it as well. It asked Americans, who do you trust? And they broke it down into categories: Do you trust a Christian? Most said yes. In fact, Christians were at the top of the list. Do you trust a black person? A Muslim? A homosexual? etc.

(And when I say “atheists,” I mean atheists, agnostics, freethinkers of every stripe, because the culture as a whole thinks of us as the same.)

We are the single-most reviled group of people in the country. Maybe the world. By far.

What we have to ask ourselves is, what can we learn from the terrorists and the serial killers? Well, for starters we need to find out who does their PR. We’ve got to ask the racists and the rapists, what’s your secret? Child molesters, how did you get to be America’s sweetheart? Show us how it’s done. Maybe we could move up a notch or two if you’d share with us some of your winning people skills.

First of all it’s the name. Atheist. It’s a cold and prickly word, like Recidivist. Rapist. Terrorist. Anal cyst. It’s a terrible word. Agnostic is no better. It sounds clinical. It’s two letters off from diagnostic. “I’m sorry to have to tell you, Mr. Johnson, we got the results back from your agnostic, and we’re going to have to amputate your testicles.”

Christian. Christian–it flows off the tongue like a crisp autumn breeze. Christian. It sounds like a guitar being strummed in the grass under a sycamore tree.

The words we use are important. The freethinking community–a better term than atheist–is not doing well in the pr department. People still call us atheists. They’re still scared of us. We’re losing the war of public opinion, and we’re losing it badly. On every front. All I can say to that is I’m so glad that we’re an invisible minority.

Atheists are good people. Historically, we’re an important check on religious excess. The Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment brought us out of the Dark Ages. The secular nation of America saved us from religious tyranny and the divine right of kings.

Yet people say they would never vote for an atheist or an agnostic for president. They’d sooner vote for Jeffrey Dahmer, evidently. What they don’t realize is that they have in the past–they just didn’t realize it. Thomas Jefferson was an agnostic. Abraham Lincoln was an agnostic. But I guess to get any PR benefit we have to wait until a good president is revealed to be an atheist or agnostic.

It’s not fair the way atheists and agnostics are treated.

Atheists are blamed for some of the greatest genocides of the 20th century. Hitler, Stalin, Mao. People think that these lunatics were simply fulfilling the dictates of the moral vacuum of atheism. These guys are an albatross around my neck every time I get talking to a religious person. Pointing out how many millions have been killed by religious extremists usually devolves into an argument where we’re just adding up numbers of dead in columns, and that’s not productive. Can’t reasonable people simply agree that human beings in the grip of any ideology can be real jerks? Especially if they are bat-shit insane?

We can do better. We can turn the tide of public opinion that runs so disproportionately against us. First, we need a mascot–a puppet, or some kind of lovable character. Christians have the character of God. He’s got a fuzzy white beard. He’s cuddly. He loves everybody. He’s like your grandpa. He’s like Santa Claus.

Now, he admits he is jealous and vengeful, and he has slaughtered entire cities full of people, wiped out virtually everyone on the planet in a great flood. In fact he set up his own son to be viciously beaten and tortured and killed–but he did it for us. So we should say thank you for that, I guess. Whatever the case, Americans love him. We need a lovable, old, child-killing curmudgeon mascot. And let’s make him a cartoon character because everybody loves cartoons.

What else can we do? I was watching Fox News the other day and came up with another idea. (I hate Fox News because they’re better at writing funny news than I am.)

I was watching Fox News, and some guy came on to promote a book that says evolution is false and creationism is true. He was an older guy, but healthy looking, wearing a suit. Well groomed. I was thinking, he probably lives a pretty modern lifestyle even though his beliefs are 200 years old.

Reasonable people know evolution is a scientific fact. We’ve mapped the genomes of several species. Chimpanzees share 96% of their DNA with humans. And the way you get DNA is from sexual reproduction. Ergo, chimpanzees and humans have a common ancestor. And that’s just the genetic science. It’s verified by every other science that we know.

For evolution to be false, some of the most basic facts of nature that we know to be true would have to be wrong. If you’re going to reject evolution, a lot of well-established science has to be thrown out the window along with it: Chemistry, genetic science, physics.

So I thought, we should, as a society, bar anyone who doesn’t accept evolution from partaking of any technological advance derived from the science that makes evolution true. No access to modern medicine, no access to basic biological, chemical products or knowledge. You want to heat up your food before you eat it? Sorry. You’re eating your meat raw because you don’t believe in germs. And forget antibiotics. You’re on your own. You’re welcome to pray for a better life, but you can’t use science. That’s cheating because you don’t believe in science. If people want to live in the 17th century, let them.

If we adopted this simple rule, this author on Fox News would come on dressed in a dirty burlap sack, with rotting teeth and matted hair, barking at the hosts like a dumb animal. And that at least would make sense, given his beliefs.

An idea like this would encourage people to appreciate all the good things that science and empirical evidence have brought to the world. It would give our PR effort a needed boost.

It would also incentivize more people to accept reality. The alternative is fantasy. People now have the option to just believe whatever they want–just make something up–it doesn’t matter if it’s not substantiated. And that hurts the rest of us.

To me, as a writer, what’s worse is that most people don’t even make up a fantasy for themselves. They actually take something someone else made up and believe that as absolute truth. I really don’t understand that. If you’re going to make up a reality out of whole cloth, at least be original. Come up with your own fantasy scenario. Something new. Catholicism, Mormonism, Islam, Hinduism, Scientology–these are all just somebody else’s made-up ideas. You can’t just take someone else’s idea and accept it wholesale as your cherished personal belief. That’s like stealing someone else’s Halloween costume idea and showing up at the same party.

Let me take a moment now to tell you a little bit about the reality that I invented–for fun. I don’t really believe it. It’s a powerful newspaper empire. Our flagship publication is called The Onion. It’s the leader in news and information without any real competitor in any known medium. Through the centuries The Onion has covered all the major news events that have shaped our world.

1910s: Sears, Roebuck Plead ‘Not Guilty’ To Pornography Charges.

1920s: Scopes Monkey Trial Raises Troubling Question: Is Science Being Taught In Our Schools?

1930s: New President Assures Nation, ‘The Only Thing We Have To Fear Is A Crippling, Decade-Long Depression’

1940s: War Rationing Board Restricts Nylon Use To Armed Forces, J. Edgar Hoover Only

1950s: Pentagon Develops A-Bomb-Resistant Desk 1960s: Holy Shit; Man Walks On Fucking Moon

1990s: Drugs Win Drug War

Today: ONN Clip: Take Your Daughter To War Day

See, atheists and agnostics aren’t scary. Listen to their laughter! It’s a joyous sound, like the laughter of innocent children. You can trust us!

Furthermore, I want to say to the world, you need us. As I hope I’ve demonstrated here, atheists are fun. We’re fun to be with. We like playing make believe as much as the next guy, but we know the difference between fantasy and reality. And our crucial role in society is to remind everyone else of the cold hard facts.

We live in an age now that could easily turn into another dark ages. It’s a time when irrational beliefs that run counter to established science are accepted not just by a large percentage of the population but also by our elected leaders.

The religious like to say they’re “saved.” But after eight years of their pick for president, it’s the rest of us who need to be saved.

And the people who voted for this leadership are ready to do it again, because they are ideologues, who are incapable of learning–they reject any factual information that contradicts their beliefs.

Who’s going to save the religious from their demonstrably terrible choice in elected leaders? Who’s going to save us all from the mistakes those leaders inevitably make when they base their decisions not on empirical facts but on made-up information, make-believe intelligence? Who’s going to save us all from living in a fantasyland and bring us back to reality? We are."

Thoughts?

Source: http://www.ffrf.org/fttoday/2008/nov/dikkers.php

Hearing and reading this kind of stuff breaks my heart and makes me sick and angry at the same time...

April 16, 2009

"Deluded" French Muslim starves, beats his eight children

Motivation? Making them "better Muslims." "'Deluded' French Muslim charged with starving children," from the Telegraph, April 15:

A delusional French father has been charged with starving and beating his eight children in the belief that it would make them good Muslims.

Police were alerted after a neighbour spotted one of the children, a boy of 13 who weighed just 70lbs, foraging in bins for food in the Mediterranean town of Banyuls-sur-Mer.

"The teenager was painfully thin, shivering, with bloody marks on his face, bare feet and sores. He said he had been beaten for stealing a handful of sugar," said local prosecutor Jean-Pierre Dreno.

Searching the family apartment on Saturday police found seven other children, aged seven to 17, in a state of hunger and neglect, including two girls, aged 13 and 15, who each weighed just 22kg.

The boy and two sisters have been taken to hospital and the other siblings taken into care, while their parents have been detained on charges of depriving their children of food, and physical abuse.

The father, a market worker of Moroccan origin, and his wife, an east European Muslim convert, told police they sought to raise their family in strict obedience to Islam, which they said included going without food.

There were no food supplies in the flat and the eldest girls had been taken out of class because of a French law banning headscarfs in public schools.

"The parents explained that they practised their religion scrupulously, and with a very strict diet," said the prosecutor.

The 49-year-old father told investigators he had beaten his son to cure him "because he was possessed by lies."

"We are dealing with a delusional person, this is a cult-like situation," Dreno said. "This went way beyond any kind of religious practice, however rigorous."

Commenting on the case, the Paris Mosque said the father was clearly deluded in his interpretation of Islam, stressing that even during the fasting month of Ramadan, children are exempt, along with pregnant women and the elderly.

Posted by Raymond at April 16, 2009 7:40 AM

Source: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/025701.php

This should make you guys laugh..  Make sure to check Sam's blog entry out after reading this article.

Meet Sam. Sam just wrote an entertaining display of his stupidity for some paper in Nebraska. It's full of real gems like:
"These folks tells their kids that their Grandpa was a monkey"
"These alledged atheists claim to know all"
"scientists who claim to have proof that the universe is billions of years old"
"Look at Bill Marr (sic)"
"The Anti-God folks know God exist, and it irks them. They want to be god."

Yeah, you can have a field day there, but Sam ended with some questions so I thought I'd give some answers to them.

"Why are all these so-called atheists harsh regarding Jesus Christ?"

• Questionable evidence for his existence for starters
• Allegedly preached some silly things like sell all your shit and give it away since the end is near and how to correctly beat your slaves
• The divinity part is fanciful to be kind, and the story had been done before
But really the number one reason is...
• So-called Christians justifying their crap in his name.

"Why do you never hear these fools curse Muhammad (sic) or Buddha or Gandhi?"

First, there's a little confusion here. Jesus is allegedly a deity, and those others are not. Also, there's actually evidence for the existence of Mohammed and Gandhi.

• Now I can't think of any reason why someone would want to curse Buddha. If someone can, please leave a comment but I can't think of anything and more importantly, I can't think of anyone doing anything terrible to themselves or others because they think it's the will of Buddha. Again, if someone has something, let me know.
• Mohammed was a child molester among other things, and Islam is full of nasty shit which should be done to nonbelievers, but so does Christianity. The difference is Christians sort of outgrew most of that, but Muslims are still in their adolescence, so we'll see how they mature.
• Gandhi? Well there are some unflattering claims about him too. Curse him? I don't see why, although Hinduism is quite silly and merely a manufactured religion by early Iranians to control the people in the land they conquered. That caste system really worked, and how interesting that the best people just happened to be those who looked like the conquerers! What are the odds?

But to get at the heart of what I think Sammy is getting at is why is non-religious ire focused on Christianity? Well it certainly is in the US. Not so much in Europe though. Why? Because the Europeans are dealing with Muslim shenanigans on a daily basis. Here in the US, the only perpetrators of shenanigans are Christians so far. Yes, yes, don't remind me of 9/11, I remember (and lest I forget, W has reminded us a-plenty this past week), but we don't have to deal with them on a daily basis. It's not that they're better. Far from it. It's just that if you're in a room with two assholes and one smacks you once in awhile and the other smacks you all the time, who are you going to focus your attention on? It's really that simple, Sammy.

"These anti-God people know, INSIDE, Who is real and who is not real."

Well I deduct points for the "anti-god" label, but yeah, it's pretty clear what's real and what's not. Too bad you're incapable of telling the difference.

Thank You PhillyChief

Source: http://youmademesayit.blogspot.com/2009/01/you-need-big-hat-for-all-this-stupid.html